The oeuvre of Sándor Dévényi, architect decorated with the Kossuth Prize, is inseparable from his proudly assumed identity as a native citizen of Pécs – the fundamental experience of his life. His works, recognized even within international discourse, are characterized by playfulness of forms, expressive and at times ironic concepts. In his buildings, the traditions of historically inspired forms are imbued with new vitality. This is an authentic architecture grounded in an understanding of the genius loci, which has found a wide and appreciative reception. For him, organic architecture is not only a working method but also an attitude and a philosophy: it responds sensitively to its environment, to the living historical fabric in space and time, with its own evolution and anatomy.
“Only someone who is fully aware of the physiological aspects of such an organism may intervene in it – like a surgeon at work. New ideas embodied in the existing environment – that is, our buildings – are living beings as well: they are born, they grow, they breathe. Even in our increasingly atomized world, architecture can, with this empathetic attitude, foster a greater unity. ‘Reimagining’ is a priority of organic thinking, one that always provides the energy to find solutions in any situation. When I sense the essence of a house, it appears to me as a unified image, from which the parts can then be unfolded on the drawing paper, logically following on from the whole. I have always been interested in the larger connections that manifest themselves even in the smallest detail,” he professes.
He strives to create new value, a sovereign building by integrating with the environment and drawing on its elements. Most of his buildings are located in a very characteristic and inspiring environment in the centre of Pécs. Many locals in Pécs, and perhaps citizens nationally, were outraged by them, but time has proven the critics to be wrong: the Lightning Stricken House has since been granted local protection. Sándor Dévényi started working as an architect in his hometown in 1975, in the postmodern period. The demanding and unique architectural views of György Csete and Tibor Jankovics, who worked in the city until 1976, and the spirit of the Pécs Group, had a decisive influence on his career. In addition, his role models are Imre Makovecz's fantastic career and his humanistic and creative attitude, while among the classical architects, Wright, Gaudí and his contemporary from Pécs, Andor Pilch left their mark.
Initially, apart from civil engineering work, he was not given any independent contracts. In the 1970s, Pécs was declared a disaster area because of its collapsing old basement system, which in some places dates back to Roman times and is 30 kilometres long. To avert the danger, a government programme was launched in 1974, which he joined as a young architect. In the world of the cellars, hidden from the authoritarian state, certain ambitions could enfold more freely: beyond the mere reinforcement of the cellars, Sándor Dévényi, exploiting the flexibility of brick, shaped these spaces with the sophistication of interior design, creating crystalline structures here, spherical, water-washed cavities there, to convey the mysteries and tensions of the underground world, which appears as the reverse of the world above ground. Dévényi's most outstanding work is the University Cellar Club (1976-1985), after which he has been called Hungary's first underground architect.
In the early eighties he worked in the downtown rehabilitation department led by István Kistelegdi, during which time he designed, among other things, the square in front of the Pécs theatre and the conversion of the listed Tímárház, as well as the new road and tunnel to relieve the downtown. As an urban planner, he received his first condominium commissions under the new building conditions made possible by the laxing dictatorship. These buildings were created in the spirit of organic thinking, as a fabric forming the body of the city. His first work, the privately built Lakodalmas ház (House of Weddings, 1984), next to the Marriage Hall in Pécs, bears this name for a reason: at the beginning, there was a restaurant in the basement, a boarding house upstairs, a photographer, a florist, a food and drink bar on the ground floor. The building stands in the centre of Pécs, where small medieval houses once stood, and which have lived on in the memory of the citizens even after their demolition. The designer wanted to create continuity in the new building, which is reminiscent of medieval houses, by integrating the results of the different cultures that followed each other. The vaulted forms of Romanticism, the pointed arches of Gothic, the Turkish stalactite vaulting, the richness of Baroque and the floral ornamentation of Art Nouveau were combined in a kind of organic eclecticism. But perhaps the most important is the atmosphere, all that can be emotionally grasped, all of what the house speaks to its visitors with spontaneous lightness: youthfully carefree and cheerful, like a bride in a white dress. This atmosphere transcends architectural styles...
An early, yet summarizing work is the Villámsújtotta ház (House Struck by Lightning, 1979), in which the plasticity of the neighboring eclectic façade is reinterpreted according to an architectural humor that is unique in contemporary Hungarian architecture to Sándor Dévényi: by placing a gate structure symbolizing a rupture, the old building is complemented with a mirror façade. As with all projects in the historic city center, the design process began with archival research, which revealed that an 18th-century inn had once stood on the site, one wing of which still remains. The new residential building was shaped using the preserved three-axis façade of the eclectic conversion. The new section adopts the system and rhythm of the existing openings, but as their inverse: where there is solid material there, here is void. The old wall’s ashlar joint becomes a gap; the joint that appeared as a gap here is transformed into a steel tube. Between old and new, past and future, a fissure yawns open. In this way, historical knowledge lives on, and collective memory continues in a contemporary, modern creation that nevertheless follows, in all its elements, the two-thousand-year architectural tradition of the city.
Sándor Dévényi's buildings always refer to something and tell a story. Yet these stories have nothing of a “compulsory reading” about them – their meanings are not to be decoded according to a predetermined scenario. Over time, legends have become attached to the houses, as shown by the special names created by the townspeople. The building introduced earlier, for example, was christened House Struck by Lightning by Kristóf Weber, and the name has lived on in public memory ever since (it even inspired him to write a musical composition titled Fal nélküli épület (Building Without Walls)). A family house built on the border between the former village of Málom – today part of Pécs – and the ten-story housing blocks was likewise named by the locals as Lakótelepet harapó ház (the House Which Bites Into the Housing Estate).
In one of his statements, Sándor Dévényi spoke about the duality that also appears in his works: “two selves dwell within every Hungarian… one is ancient, shamanistic, wild, stirring from within and imparting energy,” while the other is “adaptable, gentle, synthesizing, providing a method for expressing ourselves.” These two poles can be discerned when a preserved roofline or an apparently static articulation of the wall is suddenly broken, when a formal eruption — like a bolt of lightning — bursts into the structure of the building. His houses seem almost to come alive. The Római udvar (Roman Court) in Pécs (1991) is a passage building consisting of three parts that open onto two streets. Teréz Street is a modest row of one-story houses, whose eaves height the new building respects. Into this somewhat archaizing façade, however, cuts the projecting entrance bay, upsetting the calm of the whole structure and setting it in motion. This deliberate disruption has a functional rationale: it must both open and close at once, inviting people in and supporting the activity of the courtyard shops. The façade facing Jókai Street takes on a completely different form, since that more metropolitan, eclectic street plays a different role in the life of the city. Here, colorful animal and plant motifs appear, and in the spirit of organic architecture, the entire building emerges as a living organism.
In Dévényi’s buildings – perhaps more than in those of any of his contemporaries – color is an organic component, an element that supports, explains, and interprets form. He applies strong hues with equal boldness not only in natural settings but also on urban buildings. He maintains that earth tones – ochre, terracotta, moss green – serve form more organically than blinding white, which treats everything with the same emphasis. His architecture also incorporates ceramics, another hallmark of the city’s character. This is a consciously assumed mission, in which he has worked together with the ceramic artist Sándor Dobány; alongside the Pécs tradition, there is also a personal connection in the background, as one of his relatives had been a porcelain painter and sculptor at the Zsolnay factory. The playful use of color on façades also appears in the “structural jokes” of the Munkácsy Court (1992). The apartment building was constructed over the remains of a medieval dwelling discovered in the basement, adopting the eclectic architectural structure of its surroundings. Yet around the entrance this fabric seems to peel away, revealing the building’s true structure. The Mediterranean, south-facing inner courtyard with its loggias evokes the atmosphere of a manor house, though its columns are deliberately offset from one another. This play was made possible by placing the load-bearing structure on the inner wall, which in turn allowed for the creation of a series of anthropomorphic elements, human faces. A bizarre sight is the negative fountain of the inner bay window, as if a slender water jet were supporting the heavy mass above it. Nor are ironic gestures lacking elsewhere: the console of the bank branch in Villány is borne by a gigantic vine stock, while on the family house in Nyíl Street, symbols inspired by the profession of its commissioning client – a professor of sexology – parade along the façade, their forms recalling a profane reinterpretation of the Tree of Jesse, emphasizing fertility. The basic elements of the Barcs Bath are waves shaped from concrete. In the case of the visitor center at Drávaszentes, these gestures are articulated on the scale of the entire building: its core is a peasant house, one half of which stands on the steep bank of the River Drava, while the other half projects over the floodplain, supported by pillars.
A unique and unparalleled solution in Hungarian urban rehabilitation is the reconstruction of two adjacent houses on János Street in Pécs (2000–2006): they appear as mirror images in dialogue with one another. The old gives life to the new, and the two are organically fused together. The Pécs Office for Urban Rehabilitation, in which Sándor Dévényi also took part, laid the foundations for a way of thinking that can be regarded as the “Pécs school.” Its essence is that memories must be preserved, or buildings may only be altered, supplemented, or expanded with new functions to the extent necessary for their maintenance and continued existence. In Pécs the building stock is not so valuable that one could only consider monument-level restoration; in most cases, additions from contemporary architecture can be made – discreetly, in accordance with the unwritten laws of integration. These two houses embody what Dévényi considers the fundamental behavioral model of present-day Hungarian inner-city rehabilitation. On the tiny plots once created for single families, the developer intended to build apartment houses with seven flats each, plus underground parking for seven cars. One was a locally protected eclectic building, while the façade of the other house was reconstructed based on archival drawings – though in mirror image. For overall effect, the original street-facing mass was retained: the main cornice, the roofline, and a section of the ridge. The new building grew organically out of the preserved house. A favorable circumstance was that, on this essentially one-story street front, these two houses were the only single-story structures, which made it possible to attach new attic levels to the adjoining firewalls. In one case, these were articulated as curving, organic, plant-like wooden forms; in the other, as crystalline shapes in silicate material. Two opposing appearances that nonetheless complement each other. The key to the ensemble’s appearance lies in the narrow line of the street: there is no façade view in the classical sense. The primary image is the faithfully restored old façade, while the new addition, through the effect of distorted perspective, seems merely to float above, preserving the value of the old while surpassing it to meet new needs. Similarly masterful, though of a different nature, is the new insertion of the Corvin Hotel in Ferencváros, Budapest (1991), a highlight of an ambitious – though unfortunately largely unrealized – series of hotel designs.
In Sándor Dévényi’s oeuvre, urban spaces appear as tasks equal in importance to buildings themselves: Színház Square, Jókai Square, the Promenade of the Martyrs of Arad in Pécs, or in Budapest a section of Nagymező Street, the pedestrian ramp of the Rákóczi Bridge, Szent Gellért Square, and Fővám Square. All reveal a unique sensitivity toward the historically formed urban context that carries deep meanings. The Forrásház (Fountain House, 2002) on Szent Gellért Square – a work that provoked much debate and political controversy – blends into its context while at the same time creating a new place at a site that was almost impossible in terms of traffic, yet one of the city’s most beautiful locations. Dévényi won the commission for the surface design in a competition, a task eased by the fact that he had already been working for years on the renovation plans for the Gellért Hotel. During the construction of the Franz Joseph Bridge (today’s Liberty Bridge), the level of the square was raised, burying beneath it the hexagonal domed bath hall of the Sáros Bath at the foot of the hill. Its thermal spring still feeds the healing thermal waters of the Gellért Baths. The planned Fountain House refers to this subterranean hall and also relates to the Art Nouveau domes of the Gellért Hotel: it proclaims Budapest’s identity as a city of baths. At its center stands a Zsolnay ceramic fountain by Sándor Dobány, whose ascending form symbolizes the energy bursting forth from the Earth. The dome arching over the spring, symbolizing the universe, is supported by eight pillars. The spring water itself also divides into eight streams, which, flowing between the pillars, empty into vortex-shaped basins evoking the city’s eight baths. The eight pillars are eight thrones, facing the cardinal directions, standing on bases shaped as waves. On the pillars are symbols: on the inner sides, those facing the cardinal points bear the emblem of Nimrod with the Orion constellation, a Scythian earth depiction, a moon motif taken from a Székely gate, and the eternal whirl (swastika), that is, a sun symbol. On the pillars facing the secondary points are earthly signs: the medieval coats of arms of Pest and Buda, along with early versions of the two halves of the Hungarian coat of arms. The eight pillars are the eight branches of the world-tree reaching to the sky, the ninth being the opeion opening at the center of the dome, pointing upward to the heavens. With its perforations, the dome seeks a connection with infinity. This is echoed by Sándor Weöres’s poem Ének a határtalanról (Song of the Boundless), inscribed on the drum of the dome. Inside, the dome’s joints are adorned with Zsolnay stars. On its exterior are motifs from a Hun belt buckle, while the pavement is ornamented with patterns from steppe folk art. This treasury of motifs continues the Hungarian Secessionist imagination of the architects of the Gellért Hotel. “These architects – Ármin Hegedűs, Artúr Sebestyén, and Izidor Sterk – in 1915, in the midst of the World War, in the final days before the collapse of the Hungarian kingdom, worked calmly in a Budapest design office on the plans of a building intended as a summation of Hungarian architecture. The universal creative force radiating from their work still has power a hundred years later: it is the strength of national unity that I wished to convey to people today in the rebuilding of the square,” declared the architect. In the other part of the square, at the mouth of Budafoki Road, a water basin symbolizing the old bed of the Danube was created, encircling the staircase that leads down to the metro.
Szent Gellért Square is an open, expansive space, whose renovation is built upon the organizing force created by the newly established focal point. Jókai Square in Pécs, by contrast, is a small, enclosed medieval square, where the designer’s aim was to highlight and subtly reinforce the existing features. The paving splits open at the “Navel of the Earth,” folding upward into sculpture (Föld köldöke, Navel of the Earth by Zoltán Pál); the water springing from it flows into the basin at the square’s hinge point, then spills out across the plane of the square. At this hinge stands István Bencsik’s Millennium Memorial Stone. The horizontal sculpture that constitutes the square – its pavement – is a homogeneous stone surface laid in a simple grid, filling the entire ground from wall to wall. The use of warm-toned, light-colored stone enhances the Mediterranean atmosphere of the space. The designer also devoted special attention to the less conspicuous elements of the square – manhole covers, drainage grates, and tree grilles.
An architect who, with his family-house–scale works, created a school of his own, Dévényi was also able to unfold his talents in special commissions: as a colleague of Dr. Tibor Sigrai he took part in the architectural design of the Rákóczi Bridge at Lágymányos, as well as in the planning of the site, image, and buildings for the unrealized Budapest EXPO ’96 (together with Ferenc Bán, Csaba Bodonyi, Dezső Ekler, István Ferencz, József Finta, Imre Makovecz, and Péter Reimholz).
One of Dévényi’s significant works is the Church of St. Michael in Kékesd. The design of the church, consecrated in 2009, was initiated in 1999 at the request of János and Erzsébet Kungl. Standing on a hill that once housed the party headquarter s and conceals the ruins of a medieval church, the new church’s two exposed brick walls take the shape of praying hands, opened slightly to the west. Above the stained-glass surface behind the altar hovers the roof, supported by a curved wooden ridge beam. The eastern façade, the entrance front, is articulated in three parts; instead of a tower, curved blade walls framing the entrance thrust upward toward the sky. The north and south walls contain windows of varying rhythm and size. Both the massing of the church and the interior space rise in an arc toward the sanctuary. The significance of the altar is accentuated by the curve of the timber support and the ribbing of the reinforced-concrete gallery that harmonizes with it. A great cross spans between the walls, rising from the tabernacle.
Sándor Dévényi's life is multifaceted: alongside architecture, after the first free elections he served as an independent member of the Pécs city council and as an advisor to the city’s architectural committee. He was the initiator of numerous significant undertakings and co-founder of the Transdanubian Motorway Company. In this capacity he launched the idea of a motorway connecting the Baltic to the Adriatic – passing through Hungary and Pécs. He believes in the power of civic initiatives; an example is the Aradi Vértanúk Szobrai Foundation, which he chaired and through which thirteen statues were erected to honor the martyrs. He was a founding member of the Károly Kós Association, and from 2009 its director. He is a professor at the Pollack Mihály Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology of the University of Pécs, and a master of the Vándoriskola (Itinerant Apprenticeship Program), dedicated to the practice, dissemination, and teaching of Hungarian organic architecture. He is a recipient of the Kossuth, Ybl, Pro Architectura, and Prima Prizes, has been awarded Pécs’s Pro Civitate prize, served as vice-president of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (2014–2017), and is editor-in-chief of the journal Országépítő.
[Made: 2016]